


Dotted Lines

by vanceypants



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Deal with a Devil, Interspecies Romance, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, misfits finding their people
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-05-14 09:38:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19270609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanceypants/pseuds/vanceypants
Summary: [PERMANENT HIATUS]Dealings with human beings are best left to professionals.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is being written as I post, so it's a little fly by the seat of my pants so far. I'm sure this idea has already been covered before, but I couldn't get the idea from my head. I realize that actual canon BMC proper is just a technological deal with a devil scenario, so this isn't exactly the most original concept, yet here I am anyway.

There were twenty three different types of Kit Kats lined up on Squip’s desk, organized by color and corresponding release date. There had been twenty four, but his boss had taken a bite out of Pumpkin Pudding. He’d considered keeping the wrapper anyway, but it was soiled, ruined, and he’d crumbled it away in the wastebasket last week.

There were twenty three different types of Kit Kats, and seventeen different variations of Mountain Dew. Sometimes the odd number on both made him uneasy, but when that happened, he just rearranged his collection until his stomach settled and his heart stopped pulsing. There were worse things than an unsteadiness in personal collections.

Besides, he’d eventually round it out to a complete number on both.

Squip brushed his fingers over the peeling label on one of the bottles (Typhoon) and felt another flurry of nerves. What would he do if the label degraded further? How would he procure a replacement? Time was so fleeting on earth, and commodities shuffled out of service in rapid fire succession.

Maybe this collection would never end.

“Squid!” The click of heels and the swivel of a clipboard tapped with elongated nails drew his attention away from his bottles, his candy bars, his lack of pictures or personal mementos. His eyes narrowed as he took in the scarlet haired floor supervisor.

“Squip,” He corrected. Not because he expected it to stick, but because names were power, and he refused to so easily slip his out of existence, no matter how much no one else seemed to pay it any mind.

“Whatever. Quit dicking around, we need to finish up early today. Cindy’s having a birthday party in the breakroom in forty five minutes.”

“Why should I care?”

Her eyes narrowed, and she set down her clipboard on Squip’s desk. It undid a row of Kit Kats, toppling like dominos, and his hands clenched in anxiety at the sight. She grabbed one of the party hats she had balanced on top of the board, cylindrical cardboard monstrosities in a garish pink and lime green pattern.

He could taste her perfume as she leaned into him, snapping the elastic under his chin. The hat settled between both of his horns, matting down his hair.

He caught sight of himself in the reflection of his dual monitors. A demon in a party hat. Did it get any more skincrawlingly pathetic?

“There. Now you look a little less sour. Doesn’t that feel better, Squid?”

“No.”

“Excellent. Finish up the Swenson report, and meet us in the breakroom. There’s cake.”

“I don’t care.”

“And don’t forget to sign the card.”

“I haven’t forgotten. I just refuse.”

“Forty five minutes, Squid!”

The silence was blissfully forceful as she stepped away from his cubicle. He glanced at his monitors, then his stack of files. The Swenson file would take a good two or three hours to properly type out, let alone his own preference to make sure every detail was in proper order with a final readthrough. He reached up, beginning to loosen the hat from his head.

The supervisor stuck her head back around the corner. “And if you take that hat off, I’ll be in Sarah’s office to have your ass for insubordination, I swear to god.”

And she would, too. He frowned. His last performance review had already stated he wasn’t a team player.

He left the hat on.

As forty five minutes ticked its way into oblivion, Squip was left with little choice but to weigh whether or not to balance his professional obligations or juggle a social jungle he didn't quite comprehend. He sighed, saving his files, and grabbing his best ink pen...then setting it aside to instead grab his second best ink pen.

Cindy wasn't worthy of his best penmanship.

He stepped up to the reception desk, grabbing the card just before the receptionist slipped it into the sleeve. She scowled angrily.

"You haven't signed yet?"

"I was told forty five minutes."

"Now I have to wait for yours to dry before I can close it."

Squip ignored her, opening the cardboard and surveying the mismatched colors and well wishes of his fellow coworkers. He found an appropriately blank space, and began to block out the letters of his name. His triangle hat began to droop, the elastic dipping into his skin. It was hopelessly uncomfortable, but he knew better than to take it off now.

"That's all you're writing?"

"I don't care for Cindy." He said, capping his pen. He ignored the click of annoyance behind her teeth, or the angry swish of her tail, as he stepped towards the breakroom. Some imported human music blasted from the interior, and he watched as clusters of demons, low level and field agent alike, fit themselves into their appropriate social structures.

He slipped himself inside, adjusting his tie as he looked between familiar faces that, much like with Cindy, he didn't feel any particular fondness for.

He couldn't understand the field agents coming here, he decided, as he grabbed a slice of cake and eyed the sugary roses and clumsy Happy Birthday cursive. White cake. He didn't care for white cake.

Or chocolate.

Or cake in general.

He was stuck with it now, though, now that he'd grabbed the plate. He balanced it in his grip, glancing around for a social group that he'd find least unappealing to join, or perhaps a spare patch of wall to lean upon. Finding neither, he kept himself poised uncertainly near the table, a plastic spoon in his grip.

They clearly didn't trust any of them with the culinary dangers of fully pronged utensils. As if most of the field agents didn't wield scythes when it actually came time for the reaping of the souls they worked so hard to collect.

Squip couldn't wait to be fitted for his. He wished that the hooded cloaks were still customary, though now that reapers and dealmakers had been compacted into the singular role of field agent, the costuming and theatrics had been drastically cut back.

That was alright. Once he had his time, he'd find a way of finding his own style. He took a forkful of cake, sliding it into his mouth decisively. The sugary, spongy texture was brittle on his tongue, and he immediately grabbed a napkin to spit it back out.

The twenty minutes he allotted himself to celebrate Cindy's date of birth would only serve to give Squip the misfortune of two additional hours after closing to work on his report. He'd need the extra time to put himself back into the frame of mind to craft every sentence, choose the correct acronyms, file the proper terminology. Tearing himself away from his work prematurely like this always left him discombobulated, unsteady, and now came the unpleasant task of putting himself back into the right mindset.

Not to mention it gave his cube-mates ample time to ask him to proofread their own reports before filing in the morning.

"You don't mind, do you, Squid?"

And of course he minded, between correcting their misuse of his name. But showing that he was a team player, that he was willing to take on additional tasks and responsibilities, it would surely help him move ahead in this corporate ladder. Five years he'd spent in this cubicle, after the required 6 years of study to learn the proper rules and regulations of deals, and reapings, and the delicacies of balancing human souls in their postmodern Hellscape.

He just assumed by now he'd already be on the field. In a high rise of his own, perhaps with a pet, likely not with a mate, but certainly with more accolades than Neatest Desk 2014 and 2016. 

He finished the final check on his own document, before picking up one of the files he'd been asked to proof. His Kit Kats and his Mountain Dews were all in order, and he supposed his life was in order too. But perhaps it was past due to put it in a new pattern. Soon, he told himself, as he pulled out his red pen and began circling misspellings. 

As the night finally ticked, to a close, he crumbled up his party hat and threw it in the wastebasket. His tail swished behind him as he fixed his cufflinks, walking out the door.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I call this chapter "unnecessary OCs to liven up the environment".

Christopher stared at Squip with black, uncomprehending eyes.

It didn’t stop Squip’s tirade.

“If they’d just give me a human, I’d collect its soul within minutes. I’ve created several theories of efficiency.”

“Efficiency,” His younger brother echoed, then mouthed it quietly to himself, as though fitting the word to memory. Satisfied with the texture of the letters, he gave a small nod of approval.

“You’re not listening to a word I’m saying, are you?”

“Yes. Efficiency.” Christopher nodded again, his black hair rustling around the nubs of his horns, adult ones just barely beginning to grow in.

He was also starting to grow into his chosen name. Squip just wished it was something a little less human. It’d be nice to have someone around with a traditional demon name.

“...you need to go to bed,” Squip sighed tiredly himself. 

He moved behind his brother, grasping the handles of his chair. He wheeled him into the bedroom, carefully sliding his arms underneath his body, and hefting him up. The bed seemed too large for his frail frame. Setting him in place, Squip smoothed the blankets over him.

Christopher sat up, grasping Squip’s wrist. He tugged his hand close, affectionately nipping his fingertips. “You’ll get a human soon,” He said softly.

The ghost of something close to a smile twitched at Squip’s lips.

“I know.”

Christopher laid back down, grabbing the stuffed bunny Squip had imported in with his last batch of Japanese Kit Kats. He snuggled it, eyes already closing. Squip flipped on the night light, leaving the door open a crack, before returning to his living room.

There was so much research to do. He pulled out his book on human history, flipping through the pages until he reached the 21st century. In order to capture a human, one had to think like a human. And that meant studying all aspect of humanity. Warfare. Politics. Pop culture. Food.

Such distasteful subjects, or at least the latter two proved distasteful. Food was okay as a collectible, he supposed. And some music was pleasing to the ears, at least the ones with female vocalists. But otherwise, the rest was frankly garbage. All the more reason to be hasty with his first soul collection to avoid all the depravity of humanity.

It was all just a matter of getting his chance.

***

“No chance in Hell.”

Basyl had a penchant for bad puns. Squip winced, more from the phrasing than the sentiment.

And then he realized his boss was, once again, denying him.

“Foolish,” He said. “I’m more than qualified-”

“You have no field experience.”

“”Because you won’t let me onto the field. I had the highest grades in-”

“This isn’t about grades, Squid.”

Another misuse of his name. Would it be wise to correct her?

Amiability was important here. If his voice was sweet enough, pleasant enough, surely he’d get what he wanted.

“I just mean I’ve studied all the necessary--is that a new haircut? It’s truly-”

“Get to the point,” She said dryly.

“Right, yes, of course. I’ve studied all the necessary protocol. And we have a shortage of agents. It couldn’t possibly hurt to dual-train-”

“No.”

Color began to rise onto Squip’s face, in correlation with the rise of his rage. “I’ve studied several efficiency theories-”

“I said no.” her voice shook the walls with its volume, its demonic growl. Squip barely managed not to shrink in his seat (shrinking would imply weakness, which a field agent would never show). 

Her expression softened just as suddenly. “You’re very good at your job. Can’t you just take satisfaction in that?”

“I guess,” Squip mumbled.

“Good,” Basyl stood up, clasping his hand into a firm shake. “I’m glad we had this chat.”

“Yes,” Squip said in exhaustion. As he pulled his hand back, his boss scooped up a pile of files, dumping them into his arms. The weight made him wobble uncomfortably.

“Go file these new assignments and deliver them to their respective agents.”

“Fine.”

“There’s a good boy,” She cooed. “And Squid?”

“Yes?”

She gestured to her lips, stretching them into an exaggerated grin. “You’d be so much prettier if you smiled.”

His lips twitched, until he forced the expression into place.

“That’s a good boy. Now go, time is money.”

***

Processing files was easy work. Mindless. Almost comfortable, even, soothing, to input data and shut off his mind. Each file was neatly marked with its assigned agent.

All but one.

Squip sighed. An Unassigned. A glitch in the system. Imperfect. Impractical. Distasteful.

He hated when things weren’t neatly, primly in their place.

But it was an easy fix. Just a matter of taking it to his boss and having it reassigned. He set it on his desk for now, then collected the stack as he went off to deliver to field agents.

The agents clustered around a conference table, laughing and discussing Earth and humanity and everything Squip studied, everything he desperately wanted to be a part of. He hesitated at the door frame, listening in, until sets of eyes began to swivel and look at him.

“Are you going to deliver our files, secretary, or are you just going to gawk at us?”

Secretary.

That was how they saw him.

His blood boiled. But he couldn’t afford to be snippy. He walked about the table, dropping files before their respective owners. The sound of paper shufling sent shivers down his spine. It sounded so official, and what he’d give to-

“Did you need something, secretary?”

“I, ah, no.” Squip pulled himself from his daydreams. The scent of paper continued to caress his senses, but he tried to ignore it.

“Good. Go on, then.” The agent waited until Squip turned around, swiftly swatting him on the ass. Squip’s tail rustled from the contact and he huffed indignantly. His shoes clicked on the floor as he walked back to his desk.

He stared at his Kit Kats.

His bottles of Mountain Dew.

The next stack of paperwork he had to sort.

And the file.

The unassigned file.

For a human soul, waiting to be harvested.

He should have taken it straight to his boss. But what could be the harm in looking? Just one little peek.

19 years old. Male. Unmarried.

He shouldn’t have read any further than that.

He really shouldn’t have read any further.

But he began pouring over his hobbies. His studies. His preferences and loves and enemies and allies.

He studied and studied and then stared at the boy’s photo.

“Jeremy Heere,” He spoke the name, then chuckled lowly as he began to pack everything into his bag, already heading for the portals which would carry him to the human realm. “Prepare to be harvested.”


End file.
